You discover Hydra’s way of life – its alternating rhythyms of work and leisure, both on the seasonal and daily basis, so conductive to creative thought and feeling, and you are suddenly able to standback from the onrush of the western man and ask yourself the real questions of life and its meaning;
Is it because the beauties of the island and the glories of the Aegean are so stunning? Is it because of the plodding donkeys, rollicking bikers and easygoing strollers (even today no cars are allowed on the island; nor would they get very far if they were); Is it because there’s something distinctively arty, cinematic, and at the same time casually cosmopolitan , still inevitably lacking the ballyhoo?
Hydra is soft and kind to the soul, it is your “sitting down time”. Bathed in light, you will find yourself to be thirstier and hungrier than ever, then you’re sipping on a Sling, gaze down the rocks and begin to crystalize your memories of summers past; you start reflecting on how you have romanced your way into life, and still won’t think of a better place to be, and start all over again;
Days of Kindness
Greece is a good place
To look at the moon, isn΄t it
You can read by moonlight
You can read on the terrace
You can see a face
As you saw it when you were young
There was good light then
Oil lamps and candles
And those little flames
That floated on a cork in olive oil
What I loved in my old life
I haven΄t forgotten
It lives in my spine
Marianne and the child
The days of kindness
It rises in my spine
And it manifests as tears
I pray that a loving memory
Exists for them too
The precious ones I overthrew
For an education in the world
Hydra, 1985
